The house belonged to the Potters.
Oh, not one Potter in particular, just the whole lot of them in general. Starting off as an important summer home for the most elite pure bloods of the wizarding society, it moved down in status to the grubby fingers of the notorious black sheep in the family, and was passed down to their disheveled business partners after them. After they finished with it, and let it rest for longer than necessary, the elderly Potters received the home, setting it up right with china and house mats as if to apologize to the house for ignoring it for so long, for making it suffer through the cigarette-holding, table-burning pigs that had held onto the house for over a decade.
But, alas, all was forgiven. The elderly Potters showed up every once in awhile with a nice bouquet of flowers and happy tones and carefree movements, occasionally toting a boy behind them with unruly jet black hair. The windows were opened and the blinds were cleaned and the tables were brushed and the smelly rugs were removed.
This ritual continued on for well over twenty five years, until the female stopped showing up.
The man relaxed with the cleaning and ended up drinking more than ever, littering the house with empty cans and staining the rug, causing it to revert back into it's smelly self. The dust reappeared and the giddiness evaporated. It was only a couple of months before the man stopped showing up at all, forgetting the house forever.
And so the weeds grew back and the spiders reappeared and the tree branches clawed at the smudged windows, begging for reentry. But the house did not give in. It pushed and blocked itself from the outside world, warding itself with spiderwebs and mold and even more weeds.
Because the house was not cared for.
Until they came.
They entered the house for the very first time together, her in a wedding dress and him in a tux. It had been a rainy day, so the bride's dress was slightly see-through, clinging to her curves like a child demanding attention from a mother. She was oblivious, of course, a smile painting her face as she looked around the room in awe, calling the house an antique-nothing could compare!
The man just smiled at his new wife, trying not to stare hungrily at her and her curves, agreeing with a simple nod and saying that the house had been in the family for well over a century and that they should really do something about the temperature inside.
They ignored the spiderwebs and the scuttling insects dancing across the floor. They ignored the overturned weeds, groping for life and air, panting at the thought that their lives might end soon.
The alcoholic beverages still littered the rug.
Those were ignored, too.
Because there wasn't much else to pay attention to, when the man caught the woman's wrist and ran his fingers through her delicious red curls and murmured against her skin, "I love you, Mrs. Potter."
She giggled, not used to the title. Not yet.
And the kisses turned to something more, and they retreated to one of the rooms upstairs, and the house didn't really do anything except relish the feeling of being touched.
Not unlike the woman by the man.
After that night, the man made breakfast for the woman and started cleaning up, picking up the discarded cans and pointing his wand at the rug to clean up the mess. It wasn't until the woman floated downstairs, hair billowing behind her, that he put the wand down and they rolled up their sleeves and they did the rest by hand per the woman's persistence.
When she wasn't looking, however, he used his wand to make certain tasks go by faster.
It took a long time, but the house was finally cleaned up. The drapes were new and the rug was clean and the weeds were gone and the branches were cut down and the yard was mowed and the air was let inside, bringing newfound breath and life into the old Potter house.
The woman kissed the man delicately after this, mumbling incoherent phrases that made the man smile against her lips. She ran her fingers through his inky hair, and it eventually led to something more and they retreated to the room upstairs, and the house didn't really do anything except relish the feeling of being touched.
It wasn't all dandelions and roses, though, in the Potter house.
It was here that the happy couple experienced their first fight as a married unit. It had been expected, with the dark newspapers littering the rug, crumpled and occasionally tear stained. The hushed looks over a shoulder when someone knocked on the door, or the gritted teeth when someone wanted to talk about It. The world. The problem at hand. The closed drapes during the day, not only at night.
They came storming into the house, her with her cheeks already stained by tears, her hair windswept, demanding why in the world would he accept to go on some mission for Dumbledore when He was out there. Why would he leave her alone? Did he care at all? Did this ring mean anything?
She moved to yank it off her finger, the ring on her finger on her left hand, but the man skidded in front of her, clasping her hand and whispering how much she meant to him and that he had agreed for them. Because he had an opportunity to make a difference-why wouldn't he take it? The world could be safer for the Potter family and he had to take it because he was a selfish man with a beautiful wife that needed a perfect world to live in.
So then the woman nodded, her red curls bouncing, her cheeks still startlingly bright against the kitchen light. And although it wasn't ideal, she moved her hand from his hand to her stomach and let the secret of the woman and the house's spill: she was pregnant. How could he leave THEM by themselves in a world made of torture? A world built on lies and deceit! Why. Why, why, why?
But the man could only pepper the woman with kisses, kissing her hand and the inside of her wrist to her elbow, letting his lips land gently on her abdomen.
The woman was crying, now. The tears were spilling over, and she let her husband pull her to the ground next to him, smoothing her hair back and telling her over and over again that it would be okay, he wouldn't be gone for long, they could do this. They were together and the baby would enter, loved unconditionally, a loving world.
And then the man kissed the woman, whispering incoherent phrases of excitement and joy-and look! He was crying. Goddamn, he was crying over a tiny idea swaddled in bundling blankets where the only terror the child had to worry about was whether or not he-or she-had enough milk in the afternoon.
Months passed, the house knew. It could tell by the new sun spots forming on the wood and brick, staining the outside of the house with a sort of happiness that didn't quite reach passed the fenced yard.
The child's first, garbled scream was heard in the house, echoing through the room upstairs, matching famously with the mother's own. They hit a pitch and the mother bowed out, leaving the child to solo. His lungs expanded and the tiny fists clawed for air-for breath, expanding until he could hold no more. The father, this time, exploded into tears, trying to figure out just how to hold his child. His child.
The fireplace, too, exploded. However, instead of with tears, it was with friends and family demanding to see the child, hurrying up the stairs and peeking past the door with expressions ranging from pure joy to disgust. In an undertone, the guests wondered why the young couple had thought it to be wise to have a child in the midst of the war with Him out there.
The couple, wrapped in their happiness, ignored it all and focused on their bundle of light they called Harry, desperate to believe he could extinguish the dark outside.
The house felt the first footsteps of the child, his still-baby fingers grasping onto the mother's. He attempted to walk and it looked more like a dance, giggling and falling over and desperately reaching for the tail of the dog that circled the child. Later, the dog would shift and grin at the father, pointing out that his kid liked him better. The man would respond, saying that his kid liked him better as a dog.
That shut him up quickly.
And as the war raged on outside, with the woman peeking behind the windows and the man triple checking the doors, the group of adults tried to remember the happiness that greeted them after long days of studying in Quidditch. Compared to now, with the woman holding the baby on her hip, the happiness was extremely different. She was older, more content. She appreciated life's little things, like the flitting smile that greeted her husband's face, and the hand that almost always seemed to be running through his hair. His humor, and the way that he almost always was the first to comfort somebody else.
And she knew that for as long-or as short-as she lived, she'd look back on her life and find these moments as the most joyful. With her baby on her hip, and her husband stroking her wrist, and her husband's best friend sprawled on the sofa, in her beautiful home, these were the times she'd be most nostalgic for, despite the horrible darkness creeping close each night.
The last night of the couple's happiness was spent together on the couch. The woman had her head in her husband's chest, and he kissed the tendrils and her head and played with her hair. Their child was asleep in the room upstairs, and the house creaked happily. Outside, the neighborhood children scuttled from house to house, banging on the door and demanding sweets. The Potter house had no visitors. They enjoyed the moment and the millions of moments leading up to this one, quiet as the crackling fire warmed the house as well as the woman's bare toes. They remembered a different room with a different fire-in a castle, how majestic. This room was always noisy and not at all quiet, and the man and the woman couldn't help but agree that they preferred the quiet over the rambunctious pranks that were pulled over and over and over again.
They didn't have to hide their affections, here.
And so they laid together, blissfully ignorant of the shape that emerged closer to the house. Muggle outsiders wondered why the man in the cloak was heading towards what looked like an empty field.
No time for anybody to warn them of who He was or what He would do.
And when He entered, there was no time for goodbyes. There was no time for last words or time, time to shout what the other already knew. Didn't the rings symbol enough?
No time, no time, no time.
The man jumped up, his reflexes sharper than ever. He pulled the woman up with him and, kissing his wife firmly-quickly, with so much emotion that it was a wonder that he had any time to do so, he pushed her up the stairs and towards their baby-their light-their Harry. She spun around, desperate for him to come with her, but he couldn't. The man loved his wife and his child too much to risk their lives.
And so he risked his own.
His body, the man's, fell first.
It hit the ground with a resonate sound. No time to scream or call out. No time to look back on his relatively short life and pray to God or Merlin or Dumbledore and wish for a second chance-a time where he could protect his wife and son better-a time where he could walk outside without cowering in fear at the side of anybody in a cloak and a wand.
The woman was upstairs, unaware that her husband was on the ground, dead. Unaware that, if she survived, she'd be alone with a child and in the first trimester of another. She hated herself for running, for fleeing. Every time she had pictured this moment, it had been one vision of her and her husband fighting until the end.
She had been wrong. She was running like the coward she was, unsure of her husband's success, her heart pounding louder than she ever thought possible as she headed toward's the room upstairs. But she didn't think about the man, didn't dwell. She just ran across the hardwood floor and pushed open her baby's door.
The door squeaked.
The husband had never gotten around to fixing it.
He'd never have the time, now, on the ground.
The intruder entered the room shortly after her, not surprised to find the woman kneeling next to her child. He tried reasoning with her, but she stood her ground, eyes itching, knowing that her husband would never have let Him get to her if he had a way to prevent it. But she couldn't mourn his death-not now, not here...she had to protect her child, so she stubbornly shook her head and said, no, no, no!
If only she had her wand.
And then her body hit next. The sound wasn't as loud as her husband's. It was softer, less defined, but more emotional, with her husband's name perched on her lips. Her child began to cry, a howling sound worse than the one he made when he first entered the world.
And she was gone.
Eventually, He left. His billowing cloak disappearing into the darkness, cast out by some unknown force. Nobody, it seemed, was left to mourn. Not the child, not the friends.
Only the house.
Over time the bodies were moved and buried somewhere else, and the baby was taken and the house, once again, was left alone.
But instead of the stray cans and overturned rugs and weedy yard, the house had to age over the picture frames of a smiling baby with a tuft of black hair not unlike his father's. It had to grow over the wedding album of the man and the woman, showing how the years since then had aged their face, but not their love. The house had to go on, to leave its best memories behind, and move on without them. Without the happiness and occasional singing that the man and the woman both offered to the child as well as the house. The footsteps were gone, no longer echoing throughout the stairwell or reverberating throughout the kitchen. The teasing and shouting and kissing and hugging and laughing and crying and loving and singing and dancing was all gone, replaced by an eerie silence that was worse than the littered cans left by the previous owner.
Eventually the house closed itself up. The weeds were far too thick to even attempt to get to the front door. The dust covered every inch of the house, and the wood began to deteriorate, eating itself up from the inside.
The only thing in the world that could possibly hold the memory of the man and the woman was the child, who had miraculously survived. The child, who, rumor had it, grew up to be similar to his mother in personality and strikingly like his father in looks, roamed the world, either too old to remember how much his parents loved him, how much the house sheltered him, or too afraid to return to the house that had been his and his mother's and his father's and all of the Potters before him.
It was quite the legacy.
But the house waited. Not so patiently, mind you, with the deteriorating and and growth of the weeds and the return of the insects. But it waited.
It waited for years for the child to come back home.